Sarosh Mewawalla

Energy & Infrastructure Partner, Dubai

"I have advised on cross-border banking and energy & infrastructure deals from London, Tokyo, Italy and the UAE for more than 25 years. I match international perspective with cross-cultural experience to make sure the deals get done, even in the most challenging environments."

Overview

Education and qualifications

Published works

Overview

Sarosh is a specialist in the banking, energy & infrastructure and export financing sectors. He has a particular focus on multi-sourced financings involving a combination of commercial lenders, Islamic financial institutions, export credit agencies as well as multilateral agencies. He has acted on some of the most high-profile transactions in the infrastructure, oil and gas, petrochemicals, liquefied natural gas, power and private finance initiative sectors in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Sarosh was the first managing partner of our UAE region and oversaw the successful development of the UAE offices into a core regional hub within the Linklaters network. He has also been managing partner of our Italian offices. Sarosh was seconded to National Power for a year during the 1990s, which provided him with a good grounding in the complexities facing clients in the energy sector.

“Sarosh Mewawalla is well respected by peers and clients alike. Interviewees highlight the depth of his experience representing lenders on large projects and comment that he is ‘very experienced on project financings. He is reliable, responsive and takes a logical approach' and add, ‘He’s calm in a crisis situation – so very good to have on board.’” Chambers Global 2016, Projects and energy: Middle East.

Work highlights

Sarosh has led on many complex significant banking and energy & infrastructure deals. These include advising on:

the US$14bn Jubail refinery and petrochemicals project in Saudi Arabia, which required multiple sources of finance, including nine export credit agencies, a separate capital issue and a major Islamic finance element

the financing of the US$1.5bn Madinah Airport Expansion in Saudi Arabia, at the time the largest infrastructure deal to have been project-financed in the Middle East and the first Islamic finance project where the underlying assets were contractual rights

the US$2bn Acrylates project financing in Saudi Arabia, which broke new ground as being the first project in which multiple project companies borrowed from under the same facility

the financing of the US$1.2bn Mirfa Power Project in Abu Dhabi

the project financing of the King Abdullah Port in Saudi Arabia

the financing of the US$2.4bn SEPC petrochemicals plant in Saudi Arabia

Education and qualifications

Sarosh holds a law degree from the University of Exeter.

He speaks English, Gujarati and Italian.

Country of admission: England and Wales and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.